Picking up those brushes again.

Hi and welcome to the occasional mutterings of Dave Doc, a military modeller and some time gamer. Gaming and model making has given me a real education, History & Geography(obvious really), Artistry, Politics, Economics, Logistics, Project Management -you try building miniature armies without the last 3.

I will use the blog to record my creations & the odd occasion I actually do some gaming.

I have always been inspired by the aesthetic side of gaming. Playing on well constructed terrain using excellently painted units is always a joy.

Friday, 20 July 2012

Pick a card ... any card...

I have been working on the game play aids for the Old West. Having read a few sets of rules I am going with a sort of amalgamation of Dusty Trails and The Rules With No Name. One key element i like about them is the "Character/Action Deck" principle. This allows for all sorts of random elements to be brought into play. So in order to improve the look I have had created a bespoke deck of cards for my game "A town called Serenity". I searched around the interweb and found a company in the US (ARTSCOW- probably one in the UK but did not find one) that were able to do bespoke front and backs using my own images for $10.99 plus $8 postage so came in about £12 and delivered in 8 days from ordering , printed and posted from Hong Kong! The wonders of the modern communication age never cease. I will order a second deck once the last of the recent purchases are painted too.

Each miniature in the "Old West" collection now has it 's own card. I photographed them against a white background and bit of simple photoshop later they were suitable to use. The various different gangs and alignments have been added. In addition there are other "Action" cards - the crossed "Colts" allow a character of the correct level to interrupt play etc. The train may arrive - and who knows who will be on that. The Joker when turned ends the turn , and a deck reshuffle takes place.

Next up i have made A5 character sheets - created using Photoshop and Powerpoint. Adding the "skills" looks like a fun bit for the first game

There is bound to be some tweaking of the format once playtesting goes on, but rather pleased with end results here.

Very, very nice, Dave! I look forward to hearing more about the game as the playtesting progresses. I always like the addition of these kind of play-aids in a game. I do a poor-man's version by creating my cards in Word/Photoshop, print on colour laser, cut out and then slide them into semi-rigid card sleeves from UltraPro. Not as posh as your examples here but it gets the job done and they have a nice hefty feel to them.

The cards look very professional and when you have nicely painted figures what a great way to show them off. It must speed the game up as well as when you pick that card up you know exactly what figure on the table you are looking for. I think you have started something here and thanks for the link.